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05.03.10

Another Microsoft Product Dies Because of GNU/Linux That Allegedly Replaces It

Posted in GNU/Linux, HP, Microsoft, Vista 7, Windows at 11:06 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Slate

Summary: HP’s Windows-based Slate is declared dead just days after it turns out that Courier too is history; Vista 7 is said to be replaceable by WebOS, which HP has just acquired

HP does not like Vista 7. How do we know? HP is said to be dumping it, only to have it replaced by GNU/Linux or other form factors. TechCrunch reported a few months ago that HP had already been testing GNU/Linux on the Slate (although not in official demos). The following two items seem to confirm the news:

i. iPad Killer Killed (they ‘forget’ or left out GNU/Linux)

Hate the iPad because it’s by Apple, and therefore nothing but fashion-driven tech with no real reason to live? Furious because you couldn’t open it up, swap out the processor, upgrade the memory, install Ubuntu and force the iPod to convert everything to Ogg Vorbis as the default?

ii. Hewlett-Packard To Kill Windows 7 Tablet Project

Hewlett-Packard has killed off its much ballyhooed Windows 7 tablet computer, says a source who’s been briefed on the matter.

The device was first unveiled by Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer at CES 2010 in January and was supposed to hit the market in mid 2010. But our source tells us that HP is not satisfied with Windows 7 as a tablet operating system and has terminated the project (something CrunchGear mentioned months ago).

The latest news is a big blow to Microsoft and it comes amid powwow that Courier's death had generated just before the weekend. Microsoft’s list of dead products is growing rapidly and adding insult to injury, it might be Free software — not proprietary software — which is going to replace Windows.

Here is another possible explanation of what HP is doing with “Slate”.

The latest buzz doing rounds on the popular gadget blogs is that, both Microsoft’s surreal “Courier” as well as HP “Slate” are dead. While Microsoft has just provided a hint towards what they call as “they may not be interested” for the development of “Courier” right now. But shockingly, most of the blogosphere is fueling stories about HP Slate being dead already. That too without any evident reasons !

Incidentally, LinuxDevices.com says that “HP tips its ARM netbook hand” (Vista 7 does not run on ARM architecture).

HP’s ARM-powered Android netbook has surfaced on the company’s U.S. website, suggesting it may be headed for a North American release. Branded as the “Compaq AirLife 100,” the netbook includes a 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor, 512MB of RAM and 16MB of flash storage, a 10.1-inch display, and GPS capabilities, the company says.

Information on HP’s Compaq AirLife 100 — like Lenovo’s Skylight, one of the only 1GHz ARM-based netbooks to have been announced by a major vendor — was leaked in February by Engadget Espanol and The Inquirer. The former website claimed the device is headed for the U.K. on the O2 Network (Telefonica Europe), and the latter said it’s headed for Telefonia in Spain.

Our proposal/open letter to Palm is no longer applicable because HP just bought it very shortly afterwards. Hans from LXer writes: “I’ve been preaching desktop-Windows and Intel x86 are not suited for tablets, smartbooks and smartphones for some months now. I’ve even called the JooJoo, WePad and Slate ‘the Epic Fail of the decade’. Would I qualify as a TechAnalyst now?”

This change in form factors is indeed challenging the status of the so-called ‘desktop’ and it’s a huge opportunity for GNU/Linux growth. Microsoft is left out because it has no attractive offerings in this area (neither in hardware nor software form).

Another Reason Why Vista 7 Was Released Prematurely

Posted in Microsoft, Vista, Vista 7, Vista 8, Windows at 10:38 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Vista 7 errors

Summary: Vista 7 has some more serious bugs that only get discussed in forums but not yet in the mainstream press

THE release of Microsoft’s latest Windows ,which is just Vista with some necessary-but-insufficient fixes*, was released in a rush because sales of Windows declined very, very sharply. The release of Vista 7 did not restore sales (Microsoft Windows profits continue to decline over the years, largely because of GNU/Linux).

A couple of weeks ago we found that McAfee had scraped Windows [1, 2, 3] (compensation is being offered now) but Windows too turns out to be scraping Windows, according to this summary from Slashdot, which points to microsoft.com where a person says:

I did a clean install of Win7 about 3 1/2 weeks ago and have had no problems. 2 days ago I discovered that no system restore points were available. After spending many hours researching the issue, I’ve taken the following steps but none have helped:

1. Completely uninstalled AVG and installed Microsoft Security Essentials.
2. Tried turning off System Restore, rebooting, turning it back on.
3. Checked the SR schedule in Task Scheduler, all seems fine. It creates restore points just fine, it just won’t keep them on reboot.
4. Scanned computer thoroughly with three different anti-malware programs, no problems found.
5. Did a sfc /scannnow, no problems reported.

No, I’m not running a system with dual booting.

Slashdot says that “Win7 Can Delete All System Restore Points On Reboot” and the concise description is as follows: “Astonishingly, the so-called system restore feature in Windows 7 deletes restore points without warning when the system is rebooted. This forum thread on answers.microsoft.com shows some of the users who have experienced the problem. Today I did a clean install of Windows 7 Ultimate 32-bit (no dual boot), and noticed that whenever the machine rebooted after installing an application or driver, the disk churned for several minutes on the ‘starting Windows’ screen. Turns out that churning was the sound of my diligently created system restore points being deleted. Unfortunately I only found this out when Windows barfed at a USB dongle and I wanted to restore the system to an earlier state. This is an extraordinarily bad bug, which I suspect most Windows 7 users won’t realise is affecting them until it’s too late.

Well, that’s what people get for assuming that Windows is predictable and reliable. Microsoft makes false promises every time a new version comes. Is it time to hype up Vista 8 yet? Surely the next version will Fix Everything™.

“In the face of strong competition, Evangelism’s focus may shift immediately to the next version of the same technology, however. Indeed, Phase 1 (Evangelism Starts) for version x+1 may start as soon as this Final Release of version X.”

Microsoft, internal document [PDF]

_____
* Our reader who is a former Microsoft MVP says that Vista with Service Pack is more reliable and polished than Vista 7.

Giving Legitimacy to Microsoft at the Expense of “Open Source”

Posted in Deception, Free/Libre Software, Microsoft at 10:06 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

SAP logo for Microsoft business partner

Summary: Gartner, Black Duck, SAP and other friends of Microsoft encircle Free/open source software for interjection and distortion of the basic terms

ENOUGH has been written here about the corrupt Gartner Group and how it operates. Bill Gates is among its big investors and Microsoft a major client. Another company which was actually created by a Microsoft employee to later masquerade as a Free/open source authority (while only developing proprietary software and software patents) is Black Duck.

One reader showed us that this new webinar requires annotation because it is hosted by Free software foe SAP along with Black Duck.

“[N]ow they’re calling they have always been doing as Open Source.”
      –Anonymous reader
Our reader writes to explain the issue: “Five will get you ten that it’s more of the same anti-FOSS talking points and usual Party Line drivel from Microsoft Partners except now they’re calling they have always been doing as Open Source. [...] It seems that the methods and message from Microsoft are the same. It talks through its partners. What has changed is that the title of their usual monkey business is changed and one or two celebrities from FOSS are brought in as keynote speakers to try to lend an appearance of legitimacy.”

In addition to this, some days ago in the press archive (largely or entirely ignored by all the news sites) we found Black Duck receiving more of that legitimacy it requires from Gartner [1, 2, 3]. Historically, for obvious reasons, Gartner has been hostile towards Free software (it doesn’t pay Gartner’s bills) and favourable towards patenting of software. It’s all just a gentlemen’s club where one does a favour to a fellow member who defends the club’s interests.

Speaking of which, the same reader tells us: “President Obama was in Estonia recently to speak in Tallin. You study the Microsoft attacks against the US, well it was interesting to notice that Microsoft evangelist and its chief lobbyist, Warren Buffett, was mentioned by name by the President.

“Buffett as you might remember is one of the primary financiers of Bill Gates’ political action committee and lobbying organ, The Gates Foundation.”

The Free software world probably knows Estonia because of the Windows botnets [1, 2] that attacked it and because it has a prominent Microsoft crony/booster inside the Commission (Siim Kallas [1, 2, 3]).

Links 3/5/2010: Joojoo Comes to Europe, Symantec Acquires PGP

Posted in News Roundup at 4:51 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

  • LinuxCertified Announces its next “Linux Fundamentals” Course

    This two-day introduction to Linux broadens attendees horizons with a detailed overview of the operating system. Attendees learn how to effectively use a Linux system as a valuable tool. They get familiar with the architecture and various components of the operating system, learn both graphical and command line tools, and learn to do basic networking. This class is scheduled for May 13th – 14th, 2010.

  • Desktop

    • IronKey launches secure online banking USB stick

      The IronKey TAB runs a Linux based operating system which in turn runs a dedicated Firefox based browser. It takes a number of steps to prevent key-loggers from intercepting passwords and has an optional virtual keyboard for non-keyboard password entry. It also makes use of the IronKey’s integrated RSA SecurID to provide login tokens, but adds an extra, variable obfuscation to ensure that any malware spies will see an invalid token.

      In some ways, the IronKey TAB is similar in intent to the process of booting a Live CD of Linux and performing banking from the read only Live CD environment, but without the need to reboot the host system and activated only when the stick is plugged in and the stick itself is not compromised.

    • ZaReason Ships Ubuntu 10.04 Systems

      WorksWithU: Do you think Ubuntu can still define a mobile internet device (MID) market, or is that the domain of iPad, Android, Chrome, etc.?

      ZaReason: I’d keep an eye on MeeGo. They have some pretty serious backing in the form of Intel, Nokia, and Linux Foundation. We hope to see the fruits of that collaboration in the near future.

    • What would be the difficulties between Windows and Ubuntu Linux for the migrating Windows user?

      I wish to migrate to Ubuntu 8.04, because I think it would benefit my programming education, and I would get some needed computer literacy skills, but I believe I’ll have problems with Linux from the first time I booted the Live CD – no, it’s not about my files – I don’t have much to migrate:

    • Being evil online is fun, but is it really worth the thrill?

      For the past few years, I’ve always tried to use Linux because I wanted to see what a freely created, communally built operating system could do.

      Right now, I’m using Mac OS X on my laptop, because I can. Once again, it’s an operating system built by Apple (which just this week is in a face-off with a journalist who bought one of its prototype phones and published details of its hardware).

      But, honestly, I think I prefer Linux: my MacBook’s fans are whirring off their axles in an attempt to chill OS X’s overenthusiastic feature set, whereas with Linux the whole thing stayed cool and responsive.

  • Server

    • NASA’s Nebula cloud descends on Washington

      Nebula runs Eucalyptus using Linux and the XEN and KVM open source hypervisors. It also makes use of MySQL and the open source RabbitMQ messaging system, used to communicate between virtual machines and to push information down to end user browsers, according to Rabbit Technologies CEO Alexis Richardson. Richardson’s outfit was recently purchased by VMware’s SpringSource division.

  • Graphics Stack

    • ATI Catalyst 10.4 Brings Initial Support for Ubuntu 10.04

      AMD has just announced the release of its newest graphics card drivers for Linux.

    • New Nvidia Video Driver for Linux Supports X Server 1.8

      Nvidia announced a few days ago, on its forum, a new version of its proprietary driver for the Nvidia graphics cards. Nvidia 195.36.24 adds support for new GPUs, and fixes a few issues. But the most important thing is that Nvidia 195.36.24 has support for X Server 1.8.

    • New standard takes on OpenCL and CUDA

      As such, PathScale has started offering free Fermi cards to open source developers in a bid to encourage the development of solid open source drivers.

    • PathScale plans CUDA killer

      While compilers are the company’s bread and butter, PathScale is also looking to push open source and help to develop better GPGPU drivers for the open source community – so much so, in fact, that the company is offering free Nvidia Fermi graphics cards to “qualified open source developers and researchers” looking to write open drivers and compilers.

  • Applications

  • Distributions

    • Arch Linux lost one of its biggest contributors

      Jan Mette (funkyou) passed away of as-yet unknown causes. Jan was a major contributor to the Arch Linux community, the creator of KDEmod and a founding member of the Chakra team. Our sincerest condolences go to his family, friends and the Chakra team.

    • Citrix downplays Red Hat’s decision to drop Xen

      Citrix CTO and longtime Xen proponent Simon Crosby said he is unfazed by Red Hat’s decision to drop the Xen hypervisor from its enterprise Linux software and focus its virtualization efforts around the KVM (Kernel-based Virtual Machine) hypervisor. Crosby claims the move won’t harm Xen’s standing in the virtualization market.

    • Debian Family

      • DIN rail PC offers choice of field buses

        Kontron announced two rugged, fanless PCs designed for DIN Rail mounting. The ThinkIO-Solo and ThinkIO-Duo include Debian Linux, 1.06GHz Intel Celeron or 1.2GHz Core Duo U2500 processors, up to 1GB of RAM and 4GB of flash storage, a CompactFlash socket, two Ethernet ports, and support for DVI-I and VGA monitors, the company says.

      • NorthScale Updates Market-Leading Memcached Distribution; Adds Debian Package to Download Options

        With today’s announcement, NorthScale Memcached Server is now available via easily downloadable software packages for Windows, Red Hat Linux, Ubuntu and other Linux distributions supporting the .rpm and .deb package formats. Downloads are available at www.northscale.com/get_started.html.

      • Ubuntu

        • Ubuntu 10.4 lives up to the hype

          With Ubuntu 10.4 there is a lot of good and it begins with the installer. One of the issues I’ve had with Live CDs is that a new-to-Linux user has trouble understanding the concept of the live CD. Ubuntu has solved this by not really stressing the “live CD” aspect. Instead they have a bootable CD that, upon boot, right away presents you with two options:

          * Try out Ubuntu
          * Install Ubuntu

          It can’t get any clearer than this. No more will new users load up a live CD and wonder why there is an Install icon on the desktop. This is just one more step towards that user-friendly Nirvana that all OS developers are searching for.

        • Ubuntu’s Lucid Lynx Linux OS Debuts With an Eye on ISVs

          The Ubuntu Linux 10.4 release codenamed the Lucid Lynx is set for general availability today, providing users with new desktop, server and cloud capabilities. Canonical, the lead commercial sponsor behind Ubuntu, is also highlighting the broad ISV support for the release.

          The Lucid release is particularly important for Ubuntu as it is the project’s first enterprise Long-Term Support (LTS) release since the 8.04 Hardy Heron release in 2008. Ubuntu LTS releases come out every two years and offer three years of support on the desktop and five years on the server, while regular Ubuntu releases only come with support for 18 months.

        • Ubuntu 10.04 Server Edition

          Ubuntu Server Edition is changing the server market for businesses by delivering the best of free software on a stable, fully supported and secure platform.

          [...]

          Most organizations want the reassurance of having a professional service behind them, that s why Canonical provides exceptional services for Ubuntu Server Edition.

        • Software Review: Ubuntu 10.04 – Late Night Thoughts
        • Ubuntu 10.04: First Impressions and Features
        • Ubuntu Launches 10.04 ‘Lucid Lynx’
        • Ubuntu 10.10 for netbooks to have single menu bar design

          Mark Shuttleworth, founder of the Ubuntu project, this week announced that the next version of Ubuntu will incorporate a global menu bar for all of its applications. The new universal menubar will only be enabled by default on the netbook edition of Ubuntu 10.10 “Maverick Meerkat”.

  • Devices/Embedded

    • Linux Everywhere

      • Introduction to the QNAP TS-459 Pro

        The NAS is based on nettop hardware, so it’s no surprise to see that there is custom Linux software powering the device. This works very well in the background, but it also means there is huge scope for improvement in functionality via firmware updates. There is even a VGA port for advanced NAS diagnostics should you feel the need to delve a little deeper.

      • Chinavision CVOB-E72 pico-projector packs Linux & WiFi for YouTube playback

        We’ve seen pico-projectors with integrated low-power PCs before, but Chinavision’s CVOB-E72 goes one step further. As well as a VGA resolution projector, you also get a Linux-based OS with WiFi b/g, a battery apparently good for up to 2hrs runtime, and a wireless remote control with a full QWERTY keyboard.

      • Alcatel-Lucent’s Linux Smart Desktop Phone

        Linux is no stranger to the world of mobile smartphones, but what about deskphones?

        [...]

        And yes it’s powered by Linux.

        The device is officially called the IC phone and there is a developer portal now live which give some additional details on SDK and developer potential for the phone.

    • Development

      • Tools and distributions for embedded Linux development

        The deployment of Linux on the desktop and in the server room is well served by the general-purpose distribution. In the embedded world things are very different: although Linux is used widely, the concept of the general-purpose distribution is much less in evidence. Many vendors rely on forked board support packages or home-grown builds to create their systems, effectively creating their own customized distribution in the process. While embedded platforms represent a challenge to the traditional Linux distribution, there is no shortage of community projects to support the development of embedded Linux systems.

      • Linux build software targets multicore SoCs

        Enea announced it has expanded its relationship with NetLogic Microsystems, which acquired RMI Corp. last year, along with its Linux-ready, MIPS64-based XLP, XLR, and XLS multicore, multithreaded processors.

    • Mentor

    • LynuxWorks

      • Linux-ready separation kernel rev’d, drives wireless medical sensor device

        LynxSecure 4.0 lets developers run modified guest OSes, such as Linux or LynuxWorks’ own LynxOS-SE real-time operating system, in a para-virtualized mode that optimizes performance. Alternatively, it can also virtualize unmodified OSes such as Windows, for complete compatibility, the company says.

      • Video: LinuxWorks founder on embedded software

        The developer of the LynxOS real-time operating system has so far escaped the wave of acquisitions in which Intel Corp. acquired Wind River, Cavium Networks bought Montavista and Research in Motion bid to buy QNX Software Systems. “I think the play now is in the ancillary parts of the software stack such as virtualization and security,” said Singh in an interview at the Embedded Systems Conference.

    • Texas Instruments

      • Texas Instruments embraces Linux for C64x DSPs

        Texas Instruments Incorporated (TI) (NYSE: TXN) today announced Linux kernel support for its TMS320C64x™ digital signal processors (DSPs) and multicore system-on-chips (SoCs) targeted for applications such as communications and mission critical infrastructure, medical diagnostics, and high-performance test and measurement. As customers move towards open source as a key element of their products, application developers can benefit from the availability of Linux on TI’s high-performance DSPs by having less software to develop, and focusing more on differentiating features and software in their applications.

      • CodeSourcery to Port GCC to Texas Instruments’ C6000(TM) Processors

        CodeSourcery, a leading provider of tools for professional embedded C and C++ developers, is working with Texas Instruments Incorporated (TI) to port the GNU Toolchain to TI’s C6000 family of digital signal processors (DSPs) and multicore system-on-chips (SoCs).

      • Sourcery G++™ Improves Embedded Application Performance

        odeSourcery, the leading provider of GNU tools for professional embedded C and C++ developers, announces the immediate availability of the spring 2010 release of Sourcery G++ for ARM®, ColdFire®, IA32, MIPS®, Power Architecture®, Stellaris® and SuperH® processors. The latest release features enhancements that boost application performance and make it easier to get started with GNU/Linux application development.

    • Wind River

      • Intel’s Wind River quintuples telecom throughput

        Just how fast is ultra-fast? According to a Wind River release, when running on Linux on an Intel Xeon 5500-based reference board, the new Network Acceleration Platform managed iPv4 forwarding at a rate of 21 million packets per second – and that’s using just four threads.

    • MontaVista

      • MontaVista targets OMAP and MIPS SoCs with Android kit

        MontaVista announced a “rapid deployment program” offering software reference platforms for Android development on Texas Instruments’s ARM Cortex-based OMAP3x and MIPS Technologies’ MIPS processors. The reference platforms include a system-wide Automated Test and Validation Suite, as well as integrated IPTV, DTV, and video on-demand engines, says the Cavium subsidiary.

      • Linux kernel port targets multi-core DSP SoCs

        Texas Instruments (TI) announced Linux kernel support for its TMS320C64x multi-DSP core system-on-chips (SoCs). Code Sourcery, Enea, Nash Technologies, and PolyCore have signed up to support the Linux port with, respectively, multi-core ready compiling and debugging tools, telecom middleware, inter-processor communications and LTE support, and MCAPI framework code, respectively, TI says.

    • ARM

      • ARM9 SoCs get hardware encryption

        Atmel is using this week’s ESC (Embedded Systems Conference) in Silicon Valley to launch two ARM-based system-on-chips (SoCs) featuring hardware encryption and authentication. The SAM9G46 and SAM9M11 support 256-bit AES, triple DES, and SHA, and they’ll run Linux on 400MHz ARM929EJ cores, the company says.

      • Linux firmware released for ARM-based printing SoCs

        Zoran Corp. announced Linux-based firmware for its ARM-based Quatro family of system-on-chips, which target touchscreen-enabled printers and scanners. The Inferno firmware offers an API, printer engine driver, print language support, and other tools for developing Linux applications on Zoran’s ARM9-based Quatro 4300 and dual ARM11-core Quatro 4500 processors, both of which include printing-optimized DSPs.

    • Android

      • Google Android 2.2 / FroYo: Successor Codenamed Gingerbread

        As FroYo has not even been released yet details regarding Gingerbread are extremely scarce, however we have heard that Gingerbread will be based on Linux Kernel 2.6.33 or 34, whether it will be Android 2.3, 2.4 or 2.5 is also unclear.

      • Vodafone unveils own-brand Android smartphone
      • Android in 2013: Open Source

        Making up for that, in part, will be more high-profile open source applications on top of Android. One pundit complained recently that there were so few Android open source applications. There are actually a fair number of them, but pundits rarely can get past brand names. And, truth be told, there are few brand-name open source projects on Android today. That will change, in part due to Android’s market presence (e.g., Mozilla’s Fennec will be reasonably popular by 2013) and in part due to changing technology (e.g., more brand name apps will be written in HTML5 and therefore will run on Android).

    • Sub-notebooks

      • Asus Eee PC 1005PE review

        A small button above the keyboard lets you quickly power the netbook up with a more basic Linux-based operating system – called ExpressGate – for speedy access to the internet. Windows 7 is also installed. Other features include 500GB of online storage, boosting the 250GB of local hard drive space. Three USB ports are also in place.

    • Joojoo

Free Software/Open Source

  • Update: Symantec buys encryption specialist PGP for $300 million
  • Symantec Acquires PGP, GuardianEdge

    Symantec is ramping up its encryption software portfolio with the acquisitions of PGP and GuardianEdge for $300 million and $70 million, respectively.

  • Symbian Foundation releases web app toolkit

    The Symbian Foundation has released a web application development toolkit for the open-source Symbian^3 mobile platform.

  • Open source HTML5+jQuery media player

    The mediafront platform is an open source (GPLv3) front end media solution for the web. Through its integration with popular content management systems, it employs an innovative and intuitive interface that allows any website administrator to completely customize the front end media experience for their users without writing any code!

    In addition, this platform offers two open source media players that can be used free of charge on any website. These media players can be used either as a stand alone solution, or within any content management system. One is flash based and the other is HTML5/jQuery based.

  • BT looks to open source to increase innovation

    BT is seeking to increase innovation in its IT functions through the gradual introduction of open source methods.

    Jeremy Ruston, head of open source innovation at BT, told a meeting at the BCS last week that BT had undergone a “profound philosophical change” by making all its software development open, “just as it is, in fact, at Google”.

  • Midmarket Leads Open-Source BI Adoption

    A recent Aberdeen Group Inc. survey found 48 percent of open-source BI users have annual revenues of $50 million or less, whereas only 37 percent of the users of traditionally licensed BI products are that small.

    Of the more than 300 organizations surveyed, almost 90 percent said they were using open-source BI software alongside more traditional BI software. Cost savings, better hardware utilization, and innovation were cited as the top three motivators for adding open-source to their software portfolio.

  • Of firmwares and cameras

    There is also an initiative to push for cameras’ operating system to go open source, and with applications be developed so users can customize how the shooter behaves.

  • Burn Blu-rays onto recordable DVDs

    The developers of x.264, the open source version of the h.264 hi-def video codec used by YouTube and many others, have taken the first step towards building a free Blu-ray creation toolkit. They’ve been able to make the codec compliant with Blu-ray video.

  • HIMSS: Nothing more authentic and scalable than open source

    If peers are helping peers meet the critical and sensitive needs of their organizations, say for example at HIMSS – why wouldn’t it be the same for our software development? Open source may be a deviation from conventional thought, but today it is playing an active role in meeting these requirements and helping organizations to scale.

    Open-source software offers a better alternative: what you see is what you get, the customer can fully evaluate a technology to understand what is offered, what it does, how it can be improved, and how to fits it into a workflow.

  • NCHICA Selects Mirth Meaningful Use Exchange(TM) to Power NHIN Connectivity

    Mirth Corporation, the leader in commercial open source healthcare information technology, announced today that the North Carolina Healthcare Information and Communication Alliance (NCHICA) has selected Mirth Meaningful Use Exchange (Mirth MUx) to achieve Nationwide Health Information Exchange (NHIN) connectivity.

  • Bringing open source to schools

    The best way to ensure the spread and success of open source is to introduce the next generations of users, and potential contributors, to open source at an early age. But this isn’t trivial. Aside from software suitable for young users, it takes a lot of support materials to teach a class and spread the word to educators. One of the better documented attempts at reaching students is Máirín Duffy’s eight-session Inkscape class and K12 Educator’s Guide to Open Source Software.

  • Open Source Scales Better Than Proprietary, The Cloud Needs Massive Scale to Succeed, Therefore the Cloud Needs Open Source

    The problem is I don’t know if I agree with this. I don’t subscribe to the 1000′s of elves in cyberspace fixing bugs in open source code. I think the fact is that a very small number of code contributors actually work on any given open source project. Yes Linux and Apache are the exceptions, but by and large most open source projects actually have a tiny number of code contributors.

  • 2010 FOSS reporter ICT Award launched

    The Free and Open Source Software community is inviting media works and broadcast reports for the 2010 FOSS reporter Award.

  • Phones

    • The Iphone OS needs to be opened up, says Kaspersky

      THE INFOSEC CONFERENCE WAS TOLD that Apple’s Iphone is secure for now, but if Apple doesn’t open up the system it will lose out to rival mobile operating systems due to its lack of flexibility.

    • Building platforms for growth in the new wireless era

      Observing leading platform companies such as Google and Apple reveals a number of tactics that can be employed across a wide segment of the wireless industry. Google, in particular, has been successful in making an impact via its much-hyped, open source, Android platform. At the heart of this platform is an operating system built on the foundations of Linux open source software code, and as such, Android is available to anyone to use, build, and develop without incurring license or royalty payments.

      [...]

      Compared to Apple’s ecosystem, the Android developer community is drawing on traditional open-source development strategies: networks of lead programmers collaborate across the code’s core software interfaces. Like Apple, Google distributes free software developer kits and application programming interfaces (APIs) to facilitate community-based development. More users and program usage will spur more innovation and improve its ability to quickly and efficiently resolve quality issues. In return, greater exposure of the Android platform will likely arise and heighten its potential for becoming a de facto wireless standard.

  • Events

  • Mozilla

    • Firefox Mobile – Review

      The N900 is my handheld of choice and as I’ve stated before it is by far the web browsing phone currently on the market. The most wonderful thing about FOSS is choice, just like a desktop computer the N900 provides you with a variety of web browsers to choose from and the Mozilla cooperation choose Maemo as the first platform to release their mobile browser for. I’ve been using firefox as the primary browser on my N900 since just prior to it’s 1.0 release, the following are my summations of what I think of Mozilla’s mobile browser.

      [...]

      All in all I think firefox mobile is the best browser currently available for the Maemo platform and thanks to the browser-switchboard it is the default browser on my device.

    • Hands-on: Mozilla’s foxy Fennec prerelease build for Android
    • Firefox 1.1 Beta sails onto the Nokia N900 mobile phone

      The Nokia N900 handset is based on the Linux-based Maemo platform and is also noted to be dubbed as a pocket computer. With the trendy phone, users can seamlessly carry out all their online activities from their mobile device itself. Now Firefox is all set to grace the handset terrain by unfurling Firefox 1.1 Beta onto the Nokia N900.

    • Firefox challenges Facebook with ID platform

      Facebook’s ambition to become a default identification platform for the web could be threatened by an in-browser identity management system from Mozilla. The firm behind second-placed browser Firefox is testing an open-source system called Account Manager, which unlike Facebook’s platform will allow users to switch between identities from different services.

  • Databases

    • Riptano Offers Cassandra Commercial Support

      A company has been formed to supply commercial support to users of open source Cassandra, a database for sprawling Web data. Social networking sites Twitter, Facebook, and Digg are among the prominent users of Cassandra, with Twitter storing 15 million tweets a day.

    • Impari Systems offers IT services

      Matt Burkhardt offers those and other services through Impari Systems Inc. at 502 Fairview Ave. The company uses free and open source software — software liberally licensed to grant users the right to use, study, change and improve its design through the availability of its source code.

  • Oracle

    • Compellent adds file-level access to SAN

      Compellent is adding integrated file-level access to its SAN product, and using Sun’s open source ZFS to do so.

      [...]

      He was confident that the lawsuits over NFS between NetApp and Sun, now Oracle, were very low-risk, saying that in ten years of open source software lawsuits had raised their heads but nothing had happened. Also: “Oracle is very committed to its open storage acquisition.”

  • CMS

  • Business

    • xTuple Dominates Market Demand For Open Source ERP
    • GroundWork Open Source Deploys eLearningZoom Learning Suite to Offer Certification Training Worldwide
    • Choosing the Right Open Source ERP/CRM Solutions

      People used to be apprehensive with open source solutions as they felt they were complex. However, this is not exactly true. Open source solutions are not just confined to Linux platforms, there are solutions available for Windows platform as well, which are very simple to install and get started with in a wizard based format. And when you contemplate about implementing ERP or CRM solutions for your organizations, you can very much consider open source solutions rather than going for expensive proprietary solutions. If you are clear about the organizational business processes and how you want to define or chart out those with ERP solutions, then you can give an open source solution a try. Today’s open source ERP or CRM solutions offer almost all the functionalities for every organizational function that any proprietary solution would offer.

    • Opsview upgrades open source monitoring offering

      Opsview, the open source systems and apps monitoring software has updated its Community edition to coincide with the release of coincide with the release of Ubuntu 10.04 LTS.

  • BSD

  • FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

    • FSFE founder Georg Greve knighted

      Now CEO of Kolab Systems, a Free Software busines, “He continues to be active amongst FSFE members and European core team”, says the FSFE.

    • Should Hacking Be Encouraged?

      “My daughters are both active on the web on social networking; my son does hack in PHP,” blogger Robert Pogson began. “One out of three is OK, I guess.”

      Women do have definite advantages in FLOSS, Pogson added, “because merit is the deciding factor in advancement.

      [...]

      The world definitely needs more free-thinkers, but “it’s not just hackers who are free-thinking,” Montreal consultant and Slashdot blogger Gerhard Mack pointed out.

      “One thing that has always got me was the number of people who think they are free-thinking simply because they are anti-establishment or copying people they think are intelligent,” Mack explained. “Free thought is more than just taking a contrary position — it’s analyzing for yourself when the established ways of thinking are right and when they are wrong.”

  • Releases

  • Government

    • Election special: Tories shed light on tech plans

      The Tories promise to open up the £200bn government procurement market to small and open-source companies, partly by breaking up large ICT projects into smaller components.

    • Barriers to London’s open source adoption

      When the Greater London Authority, a city-wide body, started to look at free and open source software they had little to learn from other levels of British government. The pace of adoption has been glacial in the UK, despite recent interest in open data. Having rolled out cost-saving open source technology for some back-office systems and web sites, the GLA has found that partnership across the wider public sector introduces the biggest barriers. The need for government bodies to interface with each other has held back the aspirations of the UK’s open source action plan.

    • Web symposium tackles local government issues

      Open source advocate Nat Torkington and Rugby World Cup 2011 marketing and communications manager Shane Harmon are among the speakers at the fifth annual ALGIM (Association of Local Government Information Management) Web Symposium in Wellington early next month.

  • Licensing

    • Announcement – Open-source release, HUBzero

      The developers of HUBzero announced its open source release. The software is a platform which its Purdue University creators says allows for easier use of clusters and grid computing, making it “a sort of a Swiss Army Knife for deploying and accessing computational research codes.”

  • Openness

    • Qbo open-source robot wants to be Ford Model T of ‘bots

      Open-source and DIY robotics should be the ideal match, but the expense of robot hardware often puts it out of reach for all but the most deep-pocketed enthusiast. Five years ago Francisco Paz decided to produce not only his own robot, Qbo, but to open-source the project so that hopefully the cost of entry would be lower for anyone else wanting to follow in his footsteps.

    • Is It Possible To Create And Launch Your Own Satellite?

      Satellite engineer Song Hojun has developed a DIY personal satellite that can be launched and operated at a reasonable cost. Hojun’s Open Source Satellite Initiative makes it possible for regular people to develop and eventually launch their own satellites. He gave a presentation demonstrating his satellite at the Machine Project last week.

    • The disruptive future of printing

      I heard Ben speak about the RepRap, along with many other programmers, scholars and activists committed to making all kinds of information available to be freely used, reused, and redistributed, from “sonnets to statistics, genes to geodata” as their website puts it.

      [...]

      As with so many advocates of free and open source solution, Ben and his friends are also planning to turn engagement into action by offering to help groups that want their own RepRap get off the ground by printing off the plastic parts needed to build your own.

  • Programming

Leftovers

  • Science

  • Security/Aggression

  • Environment

  • Internet/Net Neutrality/DRM

    • DRM

      May 4 is the “Day Against DRM”. Talk with people about it. Tell them they have options. Tell retailers you do not want that stuff. DON’T BUY IT. You will be getting less than you want.

      My objections to DRM have nothing to do with respect for copyright. I believe creators of works should have some rights to how they are used. I disagree with the length of copyright terms. I see no reason why patents, rights to things tangible, are less than rights to things intangible but copyable. That is arbitrary law in my view. There is no good rationale for it. Why should not the period of copyright be the same as patents, 18 years or so? This thing about offending old people by propagating their works during their lifetime is silly. People make their choices in life for better or for worse. We should not, as a society support some people’s choices more than others. That is not fair.

  • Copyrights

    • Copyright

      So, it appears to me that cheap, legal copies made in another country covered by the Berne Convention could be imported to Canada legally. If M$ caused the copies to be made legally in a country in which Berne applies, they cannot go after an importer for violation of copyright. Similarly, if M$ make copies in a country not covered by Berne, then later importation are equivalent to copying. I am not a lawyer so do not rely on this. It is my opinion based on the plain reading of the law. Whatever the EULA says does not trump copyright law when it comes to finding infringement of copyright. M$ may have grounds to sue for breaking a contract but usually that provision just involves termination of the contract.

      Checking some prices: Malaysia “7″ Ultimate $206 and $205 in Canada

      So, concerns about M$ not making any money in far-flung reaches of Earth are over-blown.

    • World Day of Commons on October 15, 2010.

      Based on the Manifesto Reclaim the Commons crafted in Belem during the WSF 2009, we suggest to organize a World Commons Day on October 15, 2010.

Clip of the Day

NASA Connect – TOAT – Aerodynamic Forces (1/10/1999)


05.02.10

Links 2/5/2010: Screenshot Of GNU/Linux Steam Client; PlayOnLinux 3.7.5 and KDevelop 4.0 Are Out

Posted in News Roundup at 2:21 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

  • Desktop

    • Can you think of a better way to spread the use of Linux?

      Camfed International, UK, contracted 1ViLLAGE to set up 48 seats of Ubuntu Linux desktops in four districts in the Northern Region of Ghana. They also provided user training for the project. I reproduce here some photos of the computers as posted by @opentechgirl. The question I’d like you to help me answer is, can you think of a better way to bring Linux to Africa?

  • Kernel Space

    • Huge page handling and CFS with tickless kernel highlights of RHEL 6 beta

      Last week, Red Hat released the beta version of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 to the public, moving the next major release of their popular server operating system into the testing and hardening phase.

      I spoke with Tim Burke, Vice President of Linux Engineering at Red Hat, and he filled me in on some of the details. Red Hat also has posted a blog with extensive product specs for RHEL 6 on their website.

  • Applications

  • Desktop Environments

    • K Desktop Environment (KDE SC)

      • KDevelop 4.0 Stable Released into the Wild

        The KDevelop Hackers are proud and happy to announce that KDevelop 4.0 is finally available as a stable release. Released together is the first version of KDevelop PHP plugins, which make KDevelop a very interesting option for PHP developers.

      • Plasmoids in windows

        Since forever (where we define the start of time to be when I started working on Plasma) it has been possible to run Plasmoids, or any widget that Plasma can display, in a window on its own using plasmoidviewer. It isn’t completely satisfactory for running widgets in a window, though, because at its heart plasmoidviewer is a development tool meant for testing and debugging Plasmoids.

    • GNOME Desktop

  • Distributions

    • New Releases

    • Fedora

      • Expected features in Fedora 13 Goddard

        boot.fedoraproject.org (BFO) is one of the unique features in Fedora. This effort by Fedora community hopes to completely remove DVD installations in long term. It allows users to download a single, tiny image and install current and future versions of Fedora without having to download additional images.
        This method is similar to Pxeboot, can also be considered as a Fedora branded version ofboot.kernel.org.

    • Ubuntu

      • Much Awaited And Fully Loaded Ubuntu 10.04 LTS “Lucid Lynx” Released!
      • Ubuntu 10.04 – Perfect
      • Ubuntu 10.04 Screenshots
      • Put Windows to the Most Appropriate Use: Create a Bootable USB Stick with Ubuntu 10.04

        The following steps provide two methods of putting the fresh new release of Ubuntu 10.04 LTS (Lucid Lynx) on a USB stick. The first method will create a bootable USB stick with a live version and the second process will create a live version with persistence. Both methods are an excellent way to always have your favorite Ubuntu system and software with you at all times and it makes for one of the simplest ways to conduct an install to a hard drive.

      • Ubuntu Lucid Lynx 10.04 Post Installation Guide
      • (X)ubuntu 10.04

        On a final note, I will say that performance has improved drastically with the 10.04 release. Some of the issues I encountered in the previous kernel version have also been resolved. The boot time is only a fraction of what it was in 9.10, and with 10.04 being a LTS release, I am very confident that I will be more than satisfied with the *buntu family of operating systems for quite some time. The speed, security, simplicity, and stability are definitely unmatched by previous releases, and compete well with many of the other systems currently available.

      • Next Ubuntu netbook edition will have global menu

        Incidentally, the Netbook Edition of Canonical’s Ubuntu 10.04, which will be officially released tomorrow, features the “industry-leading interface for these smaller screens,” the company claims.

      • Variants

      • Mint

        • News update

          This is just a brief news update about what is going on at the moment:

          * Release date: The latest ISO is passing all my tests and I’m approving it for an RC release. It still needs to go through Exploder’s testing and it requires his approval before it can go out publicly.
          * Windows installer: Mint4Win is back and it’s fully functional. The version that comes with the CD installs what’s on the CD. We’re also considering to maintain a standalone version which would be able to download and install editions of Linux Mint as we release them.

  • Devices/Embedded

    • Phones

      • Mobile is the New Desktop: The HP/Palm Q&A

        Q: But why now?
        A: Because for all of the penetration of the iPhone and Android class devices, this market is just getting started. Look at any hardware vendor’s roadmap and you’re likely to see not only a smartphone play, but all manner of MID/tablet/smartbook devices as well – largely ARM driven. Because that’s a compelling market. The hardware, of course, is only one part of the equation. And, arguably, not the hardest part.

      • Nokia Qt SDK beta has adorable mobile simulators

        Nokia is developing a new Qt SDK that will simplify the development of cross-platform mobile applications. A beta release, which was made available this week, includes the Qt Creator integrated development environment (IDE), comprehensive Qt reference documentation, and mobile simulators that make it possible to see how a Qt application will look and feel on MeeGo or Symbian.

      • Android

        • Mobile phone sales rise as Andoid online usage soars
        • Google reportedly preparing to intro TV software next month

          Google’s TV plans have yet to be officially confirmed, though they have been rumored for at least a month now. Consistent with the company’s strategy in other areas, Google isn’t expected to be involved in manufacturing set-top boxes; rather, the company is supposedly developing a version of Android that would be especially conducive to the big screen. Third-party developers would then be able to write their own apps for the devices, giving more openness and flexibility to people’s TV watching habits.

    • Sub-notebooks

      • Proposal from OLPC Paraguay on how to manage Sugar or other educational software

        The project to deliver One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) for educational purpose in developing countries is doing great in Paraguay. According to developer Bernie Innocenti, this success comes from a way to manage the development of the Sugar educational software that other countries (or any other similar projects, see for example the Teachermate or the italian JumpPC) could and should imitate.

Free Software/Open Source

  • The Magic Black Box Paradox of Freedom

    Freedom is the ability to do what one wants. Some restrictions to freedom are understandable and necessary. No sane individual would argue for the freedom to kill, or the freedom to steal. In modern society, restriction on an individual’s freedom are most acceptable if said restrictions protect the freedom of others. The freedom to kill takes away the freedom to live from the killed. The freedom to steal takes away the rights of property from the robbed. However, an argument against hate speech, because it hurts others’ freedom to feel safe, is much more controversial. A line must be drawn somewhere that establishes the maximum possible freedom for all individuals.

  • A quick one on Being Free

    Just finished editing a dot story on Choqok (will go live sometime next week). Some of you might have noticed the initiative by its main developer Mehrdad Momeny to speed up development by soliciting monetary input. This will allow him to spend more time on making Choqok rock, but also give users a tangible way of influencing development priorities. This can increase commitment from the users, developers and the community – while bringing real benefits (in terms of code).

  • The Bizarre Cathedral – 71
  • Open-Xchange Simplifies SaaS Pricing, Targets Exchange

    Open-Xchange, the open source Microsoft Exchange competitor and collaboration platform that’s been turning heads in the hosted application market, has announced a simplified SaaS partner pricing structure that comes in two flavors: guaranteed revenue and flat rate. Here’s the scoop on what could be a sign of things to come for the cloud market and the IT channel.

    If Open-Xchange’s press release is to be believed, Open-Xchange only cares about two things from its partners: how big your customer base is, and how you plan to pay for the groupware subscriptions. They call it “OXrate” pricing, and they have five tiered partner levels from less than 1,000 to more than 250,000 customers. No matter what tier you fall on, though, they’re still offering both aforementioned pricing schemes.

  • How to help large organizations to contribute open source project ?

    During the 2010 thinktank in Napa, one of the participant asked the audience the following question “How could we help organizations to contribute to Open Source software”.

    The problem is the following : most of the large organizations rely on open source software one way or another. There is not necessarily an official policy about FLOSS usage but system engineers and IT administrators & developers tends to use and deploy Open Source software.

  • The USING Series: More than Just a Book

    I previously posted here in my blog that my eBook Using GIMP was going to be released within a few months. What I probably didn’t spell out, is that it’s part of a newly launched book series called Using under the imprint of the aforementioned QUE Publishing. But why should you care?

  • Open source communities must protect their interests

    When Oracle bought Sun the first reaction in the mySQL open source community was to fork it.

    Now PGP may need a fork following Symantec’s purchase of PGP Corp., and speculation it may favor Guardian Edge instead.

  • A Bushel of Free FOSS Tutorials

    You can’t knock a good FOSS tutorial. While documentation, including tutorials, is often a weakness with open source applications–even very established ones–the good news is that there are some outstanding free tutorials on the web. They’re available for many projects and platforms. Sometimes these are delivered by the community behind particular projects, and sometimes they are from enthusiasts and other third parties. In this post, you’ll find many of them.

  • Interview with Mercurial’s Matt Mackall

    Recently, Mercurial author Matt Mackall has decided to try to devote his full time to working on the distributed source control tool. He’s doing this by seeking funding from companies that use Mercurial or sell Mercurial-based products.

    [...]

    OStatic: Do you have any plans for promoting Mercurial in addition to the development work to try to boost adoption & contributions?

    Frankly, no. I’m not much interested in evangelizing. Mercurial is successful enough that I just don’t have time for it, let alone motivation. As for contributions, there are already more than I can manage in my available time, and so a large part of this efforts is to free up more of my time for that.

  • Can’t Program, won’t Program? Then Mash the Web with Mozilla’s Ubiquity

    Mozilla’s Firefox browser has been downloaded more that one billion times and its success is reflected in the millions of downloads of one of its killer features: addons (or extensions, as we geriatrics called them).

  • Events

  • Oracle

  • BSD/UNIX

    • The customer is (almost) always right

      We had produced a version of Unix called Ultrix for our PDP-11 line of computers, and several releases of this had already been shipped, proving itself to be a solid implementation of Unix.

      At the event we had a reception, with finger food, beer and wine and I was standing there, munching some chicken wings and drinking a beer when a customer walked up to me and said:

      “I think your Ultrix system really stinks.”

      He actually used another word than “stinks”, also beginning with an “s” and ending with a “k”, but this is a family-oriented blog and we don’t want to put anything bad here.

Leftovers

  • Sony to stop selling floppy disks from 2011

    Sony has signalled what could be the final end of the venerable floppy disk.

    The electronics giant has said it will stop selling the 30-year-old storage media in Japan from March 2011.

  • Kicking Outlook

    Tired of Microsoft Outlook for managing your email? Here are some alternatives.

    Mention email and most Windows users immediately think of Outlook. The Outlook email client from Microsoft has become so entrenched in the Windows desktop that most users don’t even know there are alternatives.

    We look at five alternative email clients that run on Windows, and in most cases, other operating systems such as Mac OS X and Linux.

  • Science

    • US boffin builds ultra-dense nanodot memory

      A US scientist has developed a way to store binary data on dots 6nm in size – possibly leading to a one-square-inch chip holding 2TB of data.

    • The Grandfather Paradox

      There you go, a mind-boggling speculation that explains everything oh so well. Time travel, if possible, is definitely not something to partake in lightly. At most, you may want to experiment with individual particles. Shipping off entire humans across the barriers of Time seems a little far-fetched. Then, you may also destroy the Universe by playing with matter and anti-matter, not an everyday task.

    • NASA’s Ambitious New Space Telescope Passes Critical Test

      NASA’s hotly-anticipated new space observatory has passed its most significant mission milestone yet – a critical design review that sets the stage for a planned 2014 launch.

  • Security/Aggression

    • Google personal suggest bug exposed user web history

      The company also points out that it has been much quicker to add SSL encryption to its online services than competitors – which is true. In July 2008, the company added an HTTPS-only option to Gmail, and in mid-January, hours after announcing that alleged Chinese had pilfered intellectual property from its internal systems, it turned the encryption on by default. It also offers SSL as an option on its Calendar, Docs, and Sites services.

      Yahoo Mail and Microsoft Live mail still have not offered such protection.

    • How Many More Are Innocent?

      Scalia wrote that an exoneration “demonstrates not the failure of the system but its success.” But these 250 DNA tests aren’t proof that the system is working. They’re a wake-up call telling us that it isn’t. Instead of falling back on groups like the Innocence Project to serve as unofficial checks against wrongful convictions, cops, prosecutors, judges, and lawmakers should be thinking about why there’s so much work for these organizations to do.

    • Kindly Endorse: Citizens against UID / Aadhaar

      We, representatives of people’ movements, mass organizations, institutions and concerned individuals including all the undersigned strongly oppose the potential tracking and profiling based techno-governance tools such as the Unique Identification number (UID) by the Government of India and the manner in which legitimate democratic processes have been undermined through this.

  • Environment

    • Deepwater Horizon oil spill to be set on fire to save US coast

      The US coastguard is to set fire to oil leaking into the Gulf of Mexico to prevent the slick from reaching shore after last week’s explosion on the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig.

      Robot submarines have so far failed to shut off the flow more than 1,500 metres below where the Deepwater Horizon was wrecked. Eleven workers are missing, presumed dead, and the cause of the explosion 50 miles off Louisiana has not been determined.

  • Finance

    • Goldman Sachs explained
    • Justice Department Investigation Into Goldman Sachs Goes Beyond SEC Cases

      But since it’s all a giant shell game anyway, and it’s likely that the other Wall Street firms are using the exact same practices, why are the stock prices dropping? It’s almost as if investors need to believe this was an aberration, and they’re clutching the idea like a security blanket. Bad Goldman Sachs!

    • What Drives Motivation in the Modern Workplace?

      PAUL SOLMAN: You’re describing a world that sounds like a marketplace, but it just doesn’t have any money in it.

      JOHN YODSNUKIS, Open-Sourcer: You know, you need adequate compensation. You have to live. You have to survive, OK? But, if you ask an artist why they became an artist, a lot of them will say, I can’t do anything else. I have to do this.

      It’s the same thing here, you know? It’s the fulfillment, the love of doing it is reason enough.

    • Open Source vs. Wall Street Bonuses
  • PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying

    • Fox News Calls Mr. Rogers An Evil Man

      Little did I know, Mr. Rogers was an evil man. By telling children they’re special just for being who they are, he helped create this generation of worthless, lazy socialists who think they’re entitled to health care… at least according to Fox News.

    • Climate Scientist, Heated Up Over Satirical Video, Threatens Lawsuit

      The Penn State climate professor who has silently endured investigations, hostile questioning, legislative probes and attacks by colleagues has finally spoken out. He says he’ll sue the makers of a satirical video that’s a hit on You Tube.

    • Why are Tea Party Supporters So Angry?

      Tea Party supporters repeatedly assert that they are not racists and that their strong dislike of President Obama is not racially motivated. The Tea Party is clearly not a hate group like the Ku Klux Klan or the various militia movements on the fringes that openly advocate hate, hostility or violence toward those they do not like. Their income, education and political influence place the vast majority of Tea Party supporters much closer to the establishment than to any such fringe groups. And in 21st century America you cannot be a well respected member of the establishment and openly advocate racist positions.

    • Even After Law Aimed At Banning It, RNC Still Sending Misleading ‘Census’ Mailer

      The Republican National Committee is continuing to send out a misleading fundraising mailer labeled “Census Document,” just weeks after Congress passed a law aimed at banning such mailers.

  • Censorship/Privacy/Civil Rights

  • Internet/Net Neutrality/DRM

    • EZTakes: 5,000+ strong DRM-free online video store
    • AT&T (And Friends) Still Hard At Work Making Up Net Neutrality Job Loss Figures

      As the FCC gets closer to crafting network neutrality rules (assuming they even have the authority to do so), AT&T lobbyists have worked overtime to push the idea that creating such rules would automatically result in job losses. To help nudge this scary meme into the press, they hired their old friend Bret Swanson, formerly employed at the Discovery Institute — a think tank that created both the “Exaflood” (debunked here countless times) and “Intelligent Design”. Back in February Swanson, like most AT&T hired policy wonks, used completely bogus “science” to insist that network neutrality rules would result in 1.5 million job losses. He came to that number simply by adding up all of the people employed by companies that submitted comments to the FCC opposing network neutrality (seriously).

  • Copyrights

    • Interview With Will Page, Music Industry Economist

      [E]conomic analysis can only tell us so much and it’s at this point when the baton must be passed on to folks from other disciplines or backgrounds who can bring new insights to the table to work out what that actually means in terms of this intriguing thing called ‘culture’ — which also means this is a good point to conclude this interview.

    • White House Releases Public Comments On IP Enforcement

      I’m not really sure how helpful those letters really were on either side, as they didn’t add too much to the conversation. The folks responding to the call from the Copyright Alliance didn’t really answer any of the questions from Espinel. They often just said “my business is in trouble, you must help me!” which isn’t very convincing. At times, they went to extreme lengths, like this guy, who tried to convince Espinel that having his photographs copied was the same thing as if he had stolen her car. Very convincing.

    • Chile Gets New Copyright Law: Some Good, Some Bad

      The “bad” is the second one. Increasing penalties makes little sense when penalties for violating copyright law are already way out of line with the “harm” done. The “neutral” one is the last one, concerning liability for service providers. Creating good safe harbors for service providers, so they’re not blamed for the actions of their users, is definitely a good thing. But the devil is very much in the details — and what the requirements are for a service provider to qualify for those safe harbors. While the report says “the ISP must meet certain requirements in order to be exempted from liability,” it does not detail what those “certain requirements” are.

    • File-Sharers Have Little But Not Zero Privacy
    • Court OKs Unmasking Identities of Copyright Scofflaws
    • Music Industry Execs Debate Brokep From The Pirate Bay

      Finally, he also knocks BPI and others in the industry for still thinking that DRM is a reasonable solution — pointing out that it’s totally anti-consumer:

      “The problem is, nobody really asked the consumer,” he says, about attempts to put DRM on CDs. “They absolutely hated it. You put the CD into the computer and it wouldn’t play… In the future, we’ve got to bring the consumers into the business model. In fact, they already are part of the business model.”

      Geoff Taylor, the head of BPI (basically the UK’s RIAA) comes off as about what you’d expect. He trashes The Pirate Bay repeatedly, claims that it’s “destroying national cultures” (with no proof, of course) and says that there needs to be “disincentives” to dealing with unauthorized file sharing.

    • RIAA Gets AFL-CIO To Support Performance Tax: Payments In Perpetuity For A Small Amount Of Work

      The RIAA has been touting this for a little while already, but the AFL-CIO has officially signed on to support the RIAA’s highly questionable performance tax. This is a bogus attempt to boost RIAA revenue by taxing radio stations for promoting their music. The RIAA has been going around claiming that radio promoting its music is a “kind of piracy”, while at the same time claiming it’s somehow illegal for radio stations not to play RIAA music. Yeah. Logic is not the RIAA’s strong suit. Even worse, of course, is that the RIAA has blatantly demonstrated that it knows there’s tremendous value in getting its music on the air. It’s been involved in payola scams for decades. To basically get the government to mandate reverse payola is the height of obnoxiousness.

    • Irish music blogs under attack over royalties

      The Irish Music Rights Organisation (IMRO) has moved against several of the country’s MP3 blogs, demanding licences that threaten to shut down some of Ireland’s most-respected music sites. Sites including Nialler9 and the Torture Garden have been asked to pay hundreds of pounds annually to continue sharing songs – most of which are sent to them by the artists and labels themselves.

    • USTR Announces What Countries Have Been Naughty When It Comes To Intellectual Property

      The USTR has released the list again (pdf) and it’s basically the same deal as in previous years. No methodology. No real interest in hearing concerns of consumers or about the rights of individual countries to make their own laws. About the only thing that the public consultation did was allow the USTR to say in the report that it “enhanced its public engagement activities.” It notes that there were 571 comments from interested parties, which is a lot more than in the past. But there doesn’t seem to be much in the actual report that reflects the concerns raised by myself and many others.

    • Google Wins ‘Thumbnail’ Images Ruling in German Court

      Google Inc., operator of the world’s most-used Internet search engine, won dismissal of a lawsuit in Germany’s top civil court aimed at stopping the company’s use of “thumbnail” preview images.

      Google isn’t violating the copyright of an artist who had posted photographs of her works on her Web site, the Federal Court of Justice said in an e-mailed statement today.

    • Washington Post Fails To Ask NBC’s Rick Cotton Any Tough Questions

      Cotton, of course, is one of our favorite quote machines. He’s the guy who famously claimed that movie downloading was hurting corn farmers of America, because people wouldn’t buy popcorn at movies any more (a factually ridiculous statement, considering that (1) box office sales keep going up (2) corn is one of the most heavily subsidized markets and continues to grow and (3) people watching movies at home still eat popcorn). He also considered it a victory, that his efforts made it more difficult for legitimate viewers to watch the Olympics.

Clip of the Day

NASA Connect – WYGTYA – Bird Navigation (1/12/1998)


Yahoo! and Microsoft! Are Like Novell! and Microsoft!

Posted in Google, Microsoft, Novell, Search at 4:49 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Novell as Yahoo!

Summary: A timely comparison between what Microsoft does to Yahoo! and what Microsoft does to Novell in order to turn any competitor into an ally

Microsoft’s corporate hijack of Yahoo! is almost complete now that former Microsoft executives and partners run the company and those who remained inside Yahoo! are leaving too (this company’s Consumer Products Head is the latest departure). It is not troubling news for Microsoft’s insider who is running the company and is said to receive $47 million in benefits. What a disgusting display of power from Microsoft. It’s likely that no laws are broken here, not even when Microsoft hires AstroTurfers to undermine Yahoo! and Google.

“Microsoft is said to have paid Verizon half a billion dollars to dump Google and channel all customers in Microsoft’s direction.”A few months ago we wrote about Microsoft’s deal with Verizon [1, 2]. Microsoft is said to have paid Verizon half a billion dollars to dump Google and channel all customers in Microsoft’s direction. Novell’s very recent deal with Verizon [1, 2] came just shortly later (see the press release [1, 2, 3] and new coverage from the press in New England and elsewhere [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9]). It is worth keeping track of this because Microsoft to Novell is in many ways like Microsoft to Yahoo!

Novell has also been occupied by former Microsoft executives/boosters over the past few years (the same goes for European regulators to a lesser extent). In turn, judging by the past week’s news, former Novell staff finds itself in top Diebold positions. Another new example of a person with past inside Novell is David Fleck, who becomes a marketing vice president.

The company also announced that David Fleck, former vice president of marketing and business development for Second Life, has joined IMVU as vice president of marketing.

More of Novell’s former PR staff finds itself inside a new host.

A tech PR agency veteran with client experience including HP, Lenovo and Novell, Margherita thrives on European PR strategy and campaign coordination. Steve Loynes, director at Chameleon, says: “Margherita’s international background and extensive experience is hugely relevant for our international work and we are pleased to have her on board.”

What PR people do is spread dishonesty with apparent sincerity. Here for example is Novell’s latest PR response to an article about Red Hat:

A recent article in in TechTarget has speculated that only one commercial Linux vendor will prevail and be viable in the data center, arguing that Novell and others won’t be able to compete. This kind of simplistic analysis makes for a good headline but, we believe, is bad research based on faulty logic and a selective use of the facts.

What a group of hypocrites. If anyone makes use of “faulty logic and a selective use of the facts” it’s Novell’s PR department. We gave a very large number of examples before. Does Novell’s PR department consider itself the foundation of truth now? PR is of course derived from propaganda.

“[The Novell/Microsoft package] provides IP peace of mind for organizations operating in mixed source environments.”

Ian Bruce, Novell’s PR Director

Novell Adds Support for Vista 7, .NET Applications, Winforms, and Microsoft WPF While Its Own Business Erodes

Posted in Mail, Microsoft, Novell, Vista 7, Windows at 4:18 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

“[The partnership with Microsoft is] going very well insofar as we originally agreed to co-operate on three distinct projects and now we’re working on nine projects and there’s a good list of 19 other projects that we plan to co-operate on.”

Ron Hovsepian, Novell CEO

Summary: “Everything Microsoft” inside Novell SecureLogin 7.0 SP1; Novell’s own installbase on Windows continues to decline

BASED on new posts such as this one, it is easy to see why Novell develops and promotes Mono and Moonlight while occasionally boosting Vista 7. Here are the latest SecureLogin “enhancements”:

The new enhancements include:

* Next-generation integration wizard for faster application enablement and a shorter, error-free deployment
* Support for .NET applications, Winforms & WPF
* Support for Microsoft Windows 7 (32 & 64 bit)
* Support for Citrix XenApp 5

Judging by the above, Novell is not much of a GNU/Linux company. It’s not.

Novell’s loss of big clients has been covered by the following sources over the past week:

IDG: Oregon Schools To Use Google Apps–And Why Microsoft Should Worry (more here and here)

The City of Los Angeles recently announced plans to migrate its 30,000 employees from Novell GroupWise to Google’s collaborative suite.

The Inquirer: Los Angeles snubs Microsoft for Google

The city has been using Novell Groupwise collaboration software but has found that its mailbox sizes are too small for its needs.

Washington Technology: The City of Angels soars into a cloud

The companies are building a cloud e-mail system to replace the existing Novell GroupWise service for the city’s municipal agencies using Google’s suite of Web-based productivity tools.

The Ithacan: ITS to switch campus server from Novell

Information Technology Services is putting the final touches on plans to migrate student and faculty users off the Novell network operating system onto a new system, making campus computer use more efficient.

As long as Novell loses business, a sale of Novell becomes more inevitable. The worth of Novell keeps declining though. The workforce is also being moved to India and to the far east. Sandeep Menon, Novell’s Country Head in India, was speaking to the Indian press some days ago, but this issue did not come up.

Apple’s and Microsoft’s New Motto: Do More Evil, Together

Posted in Apple, GNU/Linux, Google, Microsoft, Patents at 4:01 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Steve Ballmer

Steve Jobs
Original photo by Matthew Yohe, modified by Techrights for humour

Summary: Apple and Microsoft share tactical moves in their fight against common enemies, notably Linux and disablers of software patents

Increasing amounts of analysis and interpretation, not just anecdotal evidence, may suggest a correlation between Apple’s action against HTC/Android and Microsoft’s action against HTC/Android. At the very least, Apple and Microsoft fight against the freedom of software and the low cost which hits proprietary software’s business paradigms at their very core (no software acquisition costs, as opposed to costs associated with services and no revenue from patents on codecs for example).

Yesterday we wrote about Apple shutting down Lala shortly after acquiring it. We explained that it could have something to do with Apple's relationships inside the copyright cartel. Apple is also promoting software patents and working against Ogg Theora. Hugo Roy’s open letter, which shows this rather clearly, has just received a lot of attention, starting with his blog post that reached Slashdot.

May I remind you that H.264 is not an open standard? This video codec is covered by patents, and “vendors and commercial users of products which make use of H.264/AVC are expected to pay patent licensing royalties for the patented technology” (ref). This is why Mozilla Firefox and Opera have not adopted this video codec for their HTML5 implementation, and decided to chose Theora as a sustainable and open alternative.

[...]

From: Steve Jobs
To: Hugo Roy
Subject: Re:Open letter to Steve Jobs: Thoughts on Flash
Date 30/04/2010 15:21:17

All video codecs are covered by patents. A patent pool is being assembled to go after Theora and other “open source” codecs now. Unfortunately, just because something is open source, it doesn’t mean or guarantee that it doesn’t infringe on others patents. An open standard is different from being royalty free or open source.

Sent from my iPad

Since it was an open letter, I think I have the right to publish his answer.

Xiph already has a response about Apple: “It would only strengthen the pushback against software patents and add to Apple’s increasing PR mess.”

To quote more fully:

Here is Montgomery’s response:

Thomson Multimedia made their first veiled patent threats against Vorbis almost ten years ago. MPEG-LA has been rumbling for the past few years. Maybe this time it will actually come to something, but it hasn’t yet. I’ll get worried when the lawyers advise me to; i.e., not yet.

The MPEG-LA has insinuated for some time that it is impossible to build any video codec without infringing on at least some of their patents. That is, they assert they have a monopoly on all digital video compression technology, period, and it is illegal to even attempt to compete with them. Of course, they’ve been careful not to say quite exactly that.

If Jobs’s email is genuine, this is a powerful public gaffe (‘All video codecs are covered by patents.’) He’d be confirming MPEG’s assertion in plain language anyone can understand. It would only strengthen the pushback against software patents and add to Apple’s increasing PR mess. Macbooks and iPads may be pretty sweet, but creative individuals don’t really like to give their business to jackbooted thugs.

The FFII’s president says that “MPEGLA will go after Theora, Apple and Microsoft, along with a host of tech companies, are also members of MPEGLA” (MPEG-LA's CEO Larry Horn is a patent troll who extorts 'on the side').

Here is some of the press coverage about the implicit threat from Steve Jobs:

Steve Jobs: mystery patent pool to attack Ogg Theora

Patent Pool to Thwart Open Source Codecs

Apple May Be Gunning for Open Source Codecs

Patent challenge looming for open-source codecs?

If authentic, a new e-mail from Steve Jobs indicates that Apple and Microsoft–of all bedfellows–could be preparing to challenge the validity of open-source video codecs.

Jobs’ e-mail to Hugo Roy of the Free Software Foundation Europe, coupled with a similarly worded announcement from Microsoft on Friday, is a shot across the bow of backers of the open-source Ogg Theora video codec, used by Mozilla to bring HTML5 video technology to Firefox. Both Apple and Microsoft plan to use the h.264 codec in their HTML5 strategy, which is governed by a licensing body called MPEG LA. Apple and Microsoft, along with a host of tech companies, are also members of that group.

On a separate note, Apple’s (or Steve Jobs’) hypocrisy which we mentioned the other day is being exposed and criticised in Ars Technica which writes:

Pot, meet kettle: a response to Steve Jobs’ letter on Flash

[...]

Part of the reason why Flash and iPhone OS are proprietary is that Adobe and Apple agreed to the terms of the H.264 patent license. H.264, despite Jobs’s claim, is not a free standard—patents necessary to implement it are held by a group that requires all users to agree to a license with restrictive terms. Those terms have previously even been unavailable for examination online. We are publishing them on fsf.org today in order to comment on their unethical restrictions. The fact that H.264 is a commonly used standard does not make it a free standard—the terms of its use are what matter, and they require all licensed software to include the following notice:

THIS PRODUCT IS LICENSED UNDER THE AVC PATENT PORTFOLIO LICENSE FOR THE PERSONAL AND NON-COMMERCIAL USE OF A CONSUMER TO (I) ENCODE VIDEO IN COMPLIANCE WITH THE AVC STANDARD (“AVC VIDEO”) AND/OR (II) DECODE AVC VIDEO THAT WAS ENCODED BY A CONSUMER ENGAGED IN A PERSONAL AND NON-COMMERCIAL ACTIVITY AND/OR WAS OBTAINED FROM A VIDEO PROVIDER LICENSED TO PROVIDE AVC VIDEO. NO LICENSE IS GRANTED OR SHALL BE IMPLIED FOR ANY OTHER USE. ADDITIONAL INFORMATION MAY BE OBTAINED FROM MPEG LA, L.L.C. SEE HTTP://WWW.MPEGLA.COM

You’ll find similar language in the license agreements of Final Cut Studio, Google Chrome, Mac OS X, and Windows 7.

A Red Hat-run Web site covered this conundrum and so did another which went with the headline: “Meet the Hypocrites: Steve Jobs”

That led to the following paragraph:

Adobe’s Flash products are 100% proprietary. They are only available from Adobe, and Adobe has sole authority as to their future enhancement, pricing, etc. While Adobe’s Flash products are widely available, this does not mean they are open, since they are controlled entirely by Adobe and available only from Adobe. By almost any definition, Flash is a closed system.

Notice anything curious about that paragraph? It’s a perfect description of Apple’s own business practices! Just replace “Adobe” and “Flash” with “Apple” and “iPhone”, “iPad”, “iPod/iTunes”, or “Mac” and you get a nicely worded four sentence critique of Jobs’ own company. Seriously… How can Jobs talk about openness when his notoriously secretive company is not only hypocritically on the warpath against Adobe, but recently goaded police into initiating a criminal investigation over the disappearance of Apple’s fourth generation iPhone prototype, which was lost by one of Jobs’ own employees!?

For some background about this, see [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8]. Apple has spin on the sin.

Adobe is already drifting towards Linux by “giving employees Android phones with Flash,” according to Apple Insider.

Following Apple CEO Steve Jobs’ public attack on Flash this week, Adobe is now reportedly planning to give its employees Android phones running Flash.

Three sources familiar with Adobe’s plans told CNet that Adobe plans to give its employees mobile phones powered by Google’s Android mobile operating system, and running a new mobile version of Flash created for the platform. Adobe reportedly has not yet decided which Android phone it will give its employees, though “various HTC phones and the Nexus One” were specifically mentioned.

A reader of ours wrote just to say that “Adobe responds to Apple on Flash” and that it “Just goes to show what happens when you do business with a closed source company.” From the BBC he quotes a report which says that “Adobe confirms plans to move away from Apple” and in it Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen is quoted as saying that “when you resort to licensing language” to restrict development, it has “nothing to do with technology”.

“Our view of the world is multi-platform.”
      –Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen
Further it says: “He said it was now “cumbersome” for developers who were forced to have “two workflows”.

“Mr Narayen said the problems highlighted by Mr Jobs were “a smokescreen”.

“He added that if Flash crashed Apple products it was something “to do with the Apple operating system”.

“He said he found it “amusing” that Mr Jobs thought that Flash was a closed platform.

“”We have different views of the world,” Mr Narayan told the Wall Street Journal. “Our view of the world is multi-platform.””

Our reader also made us aware that “Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 9 shuns open video”, which shows quite clearly that Microsoft’s ‘embrace’ of HTML5 was an embrace, extend, and extinguish move (who didn’t see that coming?). Microsoft may have embraced <video> only to ensure that Theora is not supported in it. For shame, Microsoft. Apple does the same thing and it's not surprising. Here is Microsoft’s spin in Slashdot and the original post that says:

H.264 is an industry standard, with broad and strong hardware support.

Define “industry standard”. What about software patents?

Our reader has insisted that Microsoft merely embraces “open ‘standards’ [with scare quote]” and that “Microsoft [is] yet again playing the ‘open standards’ shuffle.” He argues that Microsoft is more or less saying: “You can use our open codecs but only on our closed proprietary system, and as long as you pay us our royalties.”

“Microsoft [is] yet again playing the ‘open standards’ shuffle.”
      –Anonymous reader
Apple and Microsoft are very much together in this. To them, Free software is a common enemy which is very strong and at the very least forces Microsoft and Apple to keep their prices down.

Here is a new article titled “In Mobile Video Standards Fight, Consumers Are Poised to Lose” and signs that Korea finally learns its lessons from ActiveX [1, 2] and moves further away from Internet Explorer, which does not support Theora, either. From Mozilla we learn:

For those of you who have followed my blog, you know that it has been 3 years since I first reported on the fact that Korea does not use SSL for secure transactions over the Interent but instead a PKI mechanism that limits users to the Windows OS and Internet Explorer as a browser. Nothing fundamentally has changed but there are new pressures on the status quo that may break open South Korean for competition in the browser market in the future.

[...]

Dr. Keechang Kim of Korea University has been working tirelessly for many years to try to change the status quo in Korea around browsers and the reliance on a PKI mechanism that is tied to one platform. With concern being raised by different parts of the Korean government, including the Korean Communications Commission as well as the Office of the President of Korea, Keechang has gathered a very interesting panel of presentations for April 29th in Seoul. The panelists will be addressing the (Korean) Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) which is the regulatory body in Korea that is currently mandating the PKI mechanism that is in place today (which requires Active-X, etc.) Unless the FSS relaxes or changes their regulations, Korean banks cannot offer other mechanisms for Korean users to bank online, etc. In short, unless the FSS changes their stance, nothing will change in Korea.

[...]

Thank you to Keechang and everyone in the OpenWeb.or.kr community for your tireless efforts to try to break open the Korean market. Thank you also to Channy Yun who has put aside his own schedule in order to participate and guide Lucas in Seoul. There is still a long road to walk to an open, competitive market in S. Korea for browsers, but I am starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Speaking of security, Netcraft writes about security issues and points out that “Windows users are vulnerable to flaw in Java Web Start”. Korea ought to change its preferred platform too.

One might argue that Apple’s big sin here is that it’s greedy and that the same applies to Microsoft. But in fact, both companies misbehave in ways that go beyond this. “Boycott Apple,” says a new headline from LinuxToday’s editor, stating the case against Apple for its abuse of bloggers.

This is an abuse of police powers, an exercise in intimidation. The message is clear: annoy Apple, and Apple will crush you like a bug. A more appropriate response would have been dueling lawyers firing subpoenas at each other and racking up the appropriate number of billable hours. The most appropriate response would have been “Oops, we goofed, we let one of our trade secrets out, we need to be more careful.”

Trade secrets are exposed all the time. Execs lose things. Employees blab. Some journalists feel it is beneath their dignity to take advantage of such lapses. But it is not our job to protect their trade secrets, and especially not in this era of intellectual property madness where the balance of power is tipped heavily into the hands of big business, and every last little thing that displeases the corporate overlords is criminalized.

[...]

At best, in my un-legal but common-sense opinion, this is a minor civil matter, and surely not a criminal case that warrants a door-busting raid and possible felony charges. Both Mr. Hogan and Mr. Chen face possible felony charges, which is utterly insane.

Attacking messengers seems to be Apple’s unofficial way out of it after it bullied Gizmodo and received bad press (context below).

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